Triangle Borea BR04 speakers
Never quite sure whether to pronounce the brand with the Anglicised ‘try-angle’ or ‘tree-on’gle’ with a French twang (tomarto/tomayto – Ed), I read with interest that the brand’s founder had inauspicious beginnings, starting life as a music lover experimenting in his garage. Today, Triangle it is one of the most famous French audio manufacturers in the world, producing hi-fi and home theatre loudspeakers.
Renaud de Vernet founded Triangle in 1980 at a time when it was hard to penetrate a market dominated by a few well-known and highly successful brands. The answer was to carve a niche in this market, so Renaud developed a company philosophy which embraced not just good sound but matched it with a stylish and elegant appearance, something of a novelty for the time.
Based in semi-rural Soissons, an 80km drive from the French capital, Triangle builds its top speakers in house with production of more affordable models like the Borea range taking place in China. Thus, the headquarters houses support services, sales, research department with anechoic chamber, and logistics. There’s also a workshop to service older Magellan loudspeakers which are sent for repair. Among the latest designs to be produced is the Borea BR04, the largest stand-mount model in the range.
Design
Part of a larger Borea range, now sporting ten models in all, presumably named after the Latin and Greek words for the north wind, Boreas, the BR04 is a two-way reflex stand-mount in a conventional looking box with redesigned front port.
Crafted to enhance the BR03’s sonics, the larger BR04 boasts improved performance from the larger volume, notably in its bass output. It uses Triangle’s EFS 25mm silk-dome tweeter with phase plug and partial horn-loading in an effort to reduce reflections. This transducer is powered by a neodymium motor generating high magnetic power in a compact size. It is coupled to a cooling system, ensuring a better power handling in what Triangle describes as an Efficient Flow System.
The mid/bass frequencies are handled by a 160mm driver with 100% natural cellulose paper membrane, with no surface treatment. This, it’s claimed, avoids coloration of intermediate frequencies, while its profile has been redesigned to improve the rigidity and now provides an extended frequency response. A redesigned network crosses over at a high 3.2kHz.
To the rear are twin sets of binding posts, allowing for bi-amping/bi-wiring for those who desire. Six cabinet finish options are offered while fabric grilles with magnetic fastenings are included.
With a quoted frequency response of 44Hz to 22kHz and a 90dB sensitivity at a friendly 8 ohm impedance, the BR04s will be easy to drive, meaning that partnering amplifiers need not be muscle bound. Their size and output suggest they are intended for smaller spaces or to be used in the nearfield in larger rooms. My rough and ready in-room measurements show an impressive overall balance and the off-axis plot is to be noted, particularly for a speaker at this price point.
Setting up
I pressed my old favourite Hegel H190 integrated streamer into use for initial listening. Siting the speakers on a 60cm high pair of Custom Design FS104 signature stands, the fact that the BR04’s reflex port is front, and not rear mounted, allows the cabinets to be placed much closer to the rear wall without compromise. There are other, inherent, design issues with this approach but for ease-of-placement it’s a winner every time in my book.
Immediately, there was a sensation that in the BR04 we have something more akin to a BBC-style studio monitor speaker than a hi-fi design intended to excite. The open and detailed sound possesses some warmth, if not as much as much more costly designs, nevertheless this Triangle speaker displays an extremely clear, clean midrange. The bass output is more than I initially expected even if the BR04 isn’t going to satisfy low end freaks without adding a subwoofer to the system.
My staple listening diet is heavily centred around speech, human voice recording and live material. In this regard, Triangle have nailed it with the BR04 which excelled given a range of voices that I know well. We were spared unwanted artefacts such as sibilance, nasality or chestiness; leaving us with pure unadulterated vocals. In this regard, again the BR04 emulates a characteristic of those famous BBC designs which I admire so much. Clearly that cellulous pulp cone in the mid/bass driver unit is very much at home with speech material and, as such, the BR04s are ideally placed either side of a TV/monitor for a pleasurable AV experience. No need for a separate dialogue speaker here in order to distinguish what is being said. Even on complex soundtracks the BR04 reveals all.
The listening panel
The panel assembled as I was immersed in Strauss’s Metamorphosen (BPO/Karajan, DG, 1980) and confirming how refined and open-sounding Triangle’s Borea BR04s were; the sound was nearing the sublime. The cabinets are what I would call medium-sized for a stand-mount and produced a clean and extremely tuneful bass although the midrange is their raison d’etre for sure, augmented by a delicate and extended treble which is never overpowering. The designers here avoided any tendency to create a ‘boom and tizz’ loudspeaker. The BR04’s dynamics are also to be highly commended as they handle everything from pianissimo to fortissimo with consummate ease.
The recording lost almost none of its magic to my mind, resolving the powerful delivery from arguably the world’s finest string section without breaking a sweat. Seemingly totally at home with this kind of material, the BR04s were now connected to Hegel’s H600 so that we could make use of Qobuz Connect for the panel’s music selections.
We began with Maggie Rogers’ Past Life where all parts of the spectrum appeared to be in the correct proportions, with no one area swamping another as can so easily be the case with less well executed designs. They avoid a thump, thump bass, for example, and have a low frequency response that is well integrated while being realistic as far as it can be for the size of drive unit and enclosure. Shut the eyes and it’s easy to believe that a pair or more expensive, much more expensive BBC-type monitors are in use. With the vocals, that midrange shone again and we were treated to a most delightful clean, clear sound with just the right amount of presence rather than the trait found in some modern loudspeakers of pushing the recording down the listener’s throat.
The soundstage had magnificent width, height and depth, making the recording sound realistic in my modest-sized room which has a tendency to suffer from wayward, exaggerated bass although, thankfully, we are spared that in the BR04. Here the bass was pleasantly taut, in greater supply than you might initially think looking at the loudspeakers, and consisting of notes rather than just a thud, thud to make the floorboards rattle.
We moved to Manfred Mann’s Earth Band’s Blinded by the Light which, on some speakers of this style, loses quite a lot of impact. That’s where Triangle have managed to strike a lovely balance between a natural-sounding monitor and a hi-fi loudspeaker that’s able to entertain. The single version of this song is a delight, notably in the stereo separation at the end which the BR04s handled well. Again the vocals deserve special mention and the Triangle boxes really brought the music home; admittedly not as holographic as speakers costing much, much more – but, doing a darn good job.
Another track that stood out was Mason Williams’ Classical Gas. This masterpiece of classical and acoustic jazz guitar, spliced together, dates from 1968 and retained so much of its original magic via the BR04s.
Conclusion
In the Borea BR04 Triangle have created a truly remarkable product. Most remarkable of all is the low price, making this THE audiophile bargain of the moment. My suggestion is to buy a pair before Triangle realise just what great value the BR04 is and doubles the price. Mind you, even at twice the price, it would still be amazing value.
The styling is slightly retro, aided by the white-coned cabinets and their ’80s looks but the grilles add a touch of class and don’t’ adversely affect the sound quality which is sublime. The in-room frequency response plots tell you everything you need to know about the sonics but, trust me, if you have a predilection for the sound created by BBC-type studio monitors then Triangle’s Borea BR04 is for you.
With the review concluded I was more than happy to leave them in my system and continue to enjoy their finesse, their delicacy and their retrieval of intricate musical detail. The fact that they allow recordings to be presented as the recording engineer desired is something, to my mind, that all great loudspeakers should do; not stamp their own mark on the music. A solid Best Buy in anyone’s book then for the Borea BR04.